Adventure Magazine Cover — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

7O He grasped a box, half as big as a match- box. Oxenham and Margaret pressed close to him. The box was covered. He slid back the lid. Within, each nestling apart on a film of cotton, were four or five boutons and large barogues: one bouton was large as a big man’s thumb nail, circular as a coin; all were price- less in color, lacking spherical symmetry, but odd, beautiful, such things as the artistic workman loves to bring under his ingenuity, fashioning strangely figured ornaments. ‘These,”. said Heddon, looking directly at Margaret, “are genuine, and of no great value. Try another box, Tom.” Old Tom stared at Heddon with quizzical frown. Pearls were a passion with him. His dry lips trembled with protest. He looked down with lingering adoration at the large odd pearls, motionless and alive, burn- ing with subdued orient flame, like little creatures sleeping in the reposeful conscious- ness of their amazing worth. Gloria brought a wooden bowl into which she had pressed a piece of black velvet. Pearls to her were little more than pretty pebbles, over which for some unimaginable reason, men were mad. Beautiful, but why valuable? She knew nothing of value; and as for beauty—the burning luster that gleamed within shells her father tumbled overboard by the thousand had as much beauty. Carefully Tom replaced the cover and carefully he replaced the box among the pegs. The very rarity of size, and their odd shape, made the pearls seem of indifferent value to Oxenham; as a diamond, oddly cut, big as a hen’s egg, would surely be thought nothing but glass by persons familiar only with the fiery glitter of small gems. “Try another one, Tom,” said Heddon. Tom’s fingers trembled eagerly as he lifted his hand, hesitating which to touch, as a child’s hand indecisively flutters over a selection of toys. The next box contained a handful of pearls of the blister type; some fairly large, none small; half-formed beauties—through no fault of their own, misshapen; perfect if rightly set—that is, perfectly deceptive. Luck, mysteriously entering into the tiny shell cavern in which they were born on the ocean bed, touched them into what they were. Luck brought them out to men’s hands. Luck could change their moon- glinting innocence to the evil impulse for tricky bartering and blood-letting. Adventure “These,” said Heddon, “are worth noth- ing. Like a woman with a twisted nose— nobody wants her, however genuine.” Tom swallowed hard a few times, but held his peace, though his small red eyes glanced hopefully toward Margaret. She was in- terested, nervous, but nearly expressionless. “No, » said Gloria quietly, indifferently. “Father never cared-fot this kind.” “{ think them lovely!” Oxenham ex- claimed. “You would,” Heddon told him. “All your life you’ve admired the wrong things.”’ Tom returned these to the shelf, took an- other small box, opened it, then with a quick ee thrust it almost against Margaret’s ace “Some of the cheaper French pearls,” said Heddon. “See how perfect they are— artificial! Prettier in a way than real ones. Always are, such things!” ‘Why did Bennings take so much care of them?” asked Oxenham. : “When he brought a trader down here, Bennings would want him to think they were real treasures—wouldn’t he?” : Gloria looked up at Heddon with mysti- fied steadiness. Her father had never brought traders into the cabin. She said nothing. . “What are these—er—worth, Will? If they were real, I mean?’ asked Oxenham. “Reale? Oh, a hundred dollars, up—each. But would Bennings have carried them about with him? He might have lost his ship—everything—been penniless.” “Beautiful,” said Margaret, touching the box lightly with both hands as Tom held it out for her to see. “You can get more perfect ones in Paris for a dollar than out of a thousand ton of shell,’’ Heddon told her. “Then why doesn’t everybody wear—” Oxenham began. “The false pearls have nothing but an outer skin coloring—like some other false things. It fades. Nothing remains. A real pearl is a pearl, from its heart out— layer on layer of inner beauty. That’s why!” Margaret with a tense air of preoccupa- tion pretended not to have listened. Oxen- ham fidgetted with embarrassment. The cabin suddenly seemed very quiet. Tom pulled back the wooden lid of an- other box and gazed, holding his breath, bending forward, lifting the box closer to his face. cComiclboool o(CO)